Who we are

Know more about our history, objectives and procedure

History

CEATL is an international non-profit association (AISBL) under Belgian law, officially created in 1993 as a platform where literary translators’ associations from different European countries could exchange views and information, and join forces to improve status and working conditions of translators. Set up by 10 founder members, CEATL has 34 member associations from 26 countries across Europe, representing some 10,000 individual literary translators.

Founding act of CEATL, January 1994

Literary translation?

As a literary translation we consider any translation of which the translator is the author in the legal sense, i.e. any translation that, as a text of its own, is protected by copyright law. The term ‘literary’ is used without any value judgement.

Aims and objectives

CEATL has two sets of aims, one internal and one external:

Disseminate information on literary translation

On the internal front we gather information on the situation of literary translation and translators in the member countries and share experiences and examples of best practice.

Defend the interests of translators

On the external front we defend the legal, social and economic interests of literary translators in a European context, which includes EU lobbying and reacting publicly to trends or events impacting on our profession and on the quality of literary translation. We help individual member associations to strengthen the position of literary translators in their countries.

Executive committee

The current board was elected by the General Assembly in Ljubljana on May 18, 2023

Francesca Novajra
President

Associazione Italiana Traduttori e Interpreti (AITI, Italy)

Valérie Le Plouhinec
General secretary

Association des traducteurs littéraires de France (ATLF, France)

Miquel Cabal Guarro
Treasurer

Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC, Catalonia)

Teodora Tzankova
Secretary

Syndicat des traducteurs de Bulgarie (BTU, Bulgaria)

Justyna Czechowska
Vice-President

Stowarzyszenie Tłumaczy Literatury (STL, Poland)

Iztok Ilc
Vice-President

Društvo slovenskih književnih prevajalcev (DSKP, Slovenia)

The delegates from the member associations come together once a year at the annual general meeting, which is hosted by the associations in rotation. The CEATL executive committee is made up of at least three elected members, who serve for two years and are eligible to re-election. The executive committee fulfils the mandates voted at the annual general meeting and undertakes the necessary actions to further CEATL’s aims.

Honorary members

The following people have been named honorary member of CEATL for their remarkable contribution to the association

Esther Benítez

Peter Bergsma

Jacqueline Carnaud

Françoise Cartano

Holger Fock

Martin de Haan

Iben Hasselbalch

Lara Hölbling Matkovič

Élisabeth Janvier

Gilbert Musy

Ros Schwartz

Manuel Serrat Crespo

Uta Szyszkowitz

Morten Visby

Shaun Whiteside

Françoise Wuilmart

Pavlos Zannas

Giuliana Zeuli